Orquesta Alto Maiz plays a wide range of Latin musical styles, including merengue, samba, cha-cha-cha, salsa, calypso, and boleros. Regardless of age group or musical preferences, Orquesta Alto Maiz strikes a common chord with its audience. Once exposed to this vibrant, pulsating music, people find it so irresistible their feet won’t keep still! Audience participation (dancing, singing) is encouraged. Once you experience them you will never forget them, Orquesta Alto Maiz, “The Salsa Band.”

Quink

Feb. 23

Quink is a remarkable group of four Dutch singers with expressive a cappella programs of a varied repertoire. Their vast stock of works includes music from early Renaissance to music of our own time. The New York Times praised Quink’s collection of Benjamin Britten works saying it “reveals Quink’s elegant phrasing, impeccable intonation and a purity of tone reminiscent of Renaissance madrigals.”

All concerts are at 7:30 p.m. in King Chapel.

General admission is $10 ($5 for students) at the door. Admission is free to Cornell students, faculty, staff, emeriti faculty, and retired staff, and to Purple Pass holders. The Purple Pass is free to residents of Mount Vernon and Lisbon and families with children enrolled in the Mount Vernon and Lisbon school districts.

On a cold, clear, moonless night in the middle of winter, all is not quite what it seems in the remote, mythical town of Almost, Maine. As the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and often hilarious ways. “Almost, Maine” is a valentine from the edge with a dose of magic around the border—a play that may be just weird enough to show us what Love really is all about. Debuting Off-Broadway in 2006, “Almost, Maine” was featured as one of the best plays of that year.

“Machinal”

By Sophie Treadwell • Directed by Janeve West

7:30 p.m., Feb. 20, 21, 27, 28

2 p.m., Feb. 22

Premiering on Broadway in 1928 and inspired by the 1927 murder trial of Ruth Snyder, “Machinal” has been considered one of the greatest and earliest examples of Expressionist Theatre on the American stage. The story involves Helen, whose entire life has been dictated to her. She follows the rituals that society expects of a woman, however resistant she may feel about them. What unfolds is a gripping drama about the status of women in an increasingly mechanized society, and the torture of a loveless marriage.

“Pictures at an Exhibition”: An adaption told through puppetry, movement, and music. A collaboration between the Cornell Theatre Department and NYC’s Puppet Kitchen.

The Cornell Theatre faculty and students will work with the award-winning Puppet Kitchen throughout the spring of 2015 in the creating and performing of this adaptation and expression of Modest Mussorgsky’s composition “Pictures at an Exhibition”—which was inspired by the paintings of architect and artist Viktor Hartmann. Mussorgsky described the piece as “seething,” saying, “Sounds and ideas hang in the air, I am gulping and overeating, and can barely manage to scribble them on paper.” Mussorgsky and Hartmann’s vibrant journey will come to life in this theatrical event and artistic collaboration between students and professional artists where movement, music, and puppetry are brought together for an extraordinary experience of story-telling.